Digital cameras

Looking to buy one, but looking for advice/feedback here. Success stories -- and no success stories with certain brands. What do you look for? Where have you found good deals? What's important to get and what can you live without? Thanks a lot.

It really depends on what you want to use it for? Is it just for quick shots and to record the dumb stuff you won't remember from a long night of drinking? Olympus is usually pretty good. But if you want some high-quality shots with an SLR-type, like nature shots, sports pictures and the like, I'd go with Nikon. The D70 does a real nice job: lots of versatility, high resolution, faster shutter speed.

Canon also has some good products, but I've never had a chance to use them. Among sports photogs, it's either Nikon or Canon. Won't see any other brand on the sidelines.

I have a Kodak z612, and while Kodak doesn't have the best reputation it's been a really good camera. It's a 6.1 megapixel, 12X optical zoom. You can find it close to $200.

The main things I'd look for are the resolution -- 6.1 megapixel allows for a very nice print, even blown up -- and get a good optical zoom. Digital zoom is worthless.

The other factor that was really important to me was the delay in taking a photo. My previous camera would blink a little sensor light, adjust the iris, adjust the flash, then take the photo. That delay was awful -- we had a baby at the time that quickly figured out that the sensor light meant to close his eyes tight because a flash was about to go off. It also meant any kind of action photo was out of the question.

As for where to buy, I've had good luck with BH Photo -- www.bhphotovideo.com.

Regardless of where you end up buying, go to a store and check them out. Play around with the controls and make sure they make sense to you. For us, we wanted something that was really convenient for carrying around (we bought it for our honeymoon) so we went to Circuit City and saw what fit best in pockets.

I have a Canon Sure Shot and I love it. Keep in mind the quality of the memory card figures into the equation as well. I absolutely love Lexar (shameless plug -- I have been unable to destroy a Lexar jump drive no matter how hard I try), and when I switched to a Lexar Platinum II card, my sports shots improved a thousand times over.

Stay away from Vivitar. I bought one for my daughter for her birthday last year. Four months later, it crapped out and after searching for 3 days or so for a gd Vivitar phone number, they said, "Sorry, we can't help you."